


i could lie, say i like it like that

by lunalou



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Child Abuse, Gen, Ghosts, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Klaus Hargreeves Deserves Better, Klaus Hargreeves Needs A Hug, Klaus Hargreeves-centric, Mild Gore, Protective Siblings, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, They all deserve better, Whump, the mausoleum fic nobody asked for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 09:37:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18385811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunalou/pseuds/lunalou
Summary: When he thinks back on it, Klaus can’t really remember when it started.That’s probably because it never really started, but was more picked up by his family as something not so normal instead. Which, thinking about it, is stupid considering just how not normal the entire lot of them are.Or, Klaus hates the ghosts, but he hates the mausoleum more





	i could lie, say i like it like that

**Author's Note:**

> i saw a post on tumblr about klaus being young in his masoluem flashbacks but always referencing being thirteen, so what happened when he was thirteen?
> 
> my answer: this
> 
> otherwise titled the mausoleum fic nobody asked for

When he thinks back on it, Klaus can’t really remember when it started.

That’s probably because it never really  _started_  per say, but was more picked up by his family as something not so normal instead. Which, thinking about it, is stupid considering just how  _not normal_  the entire lot of them are.

For Klaus, seeing ghosts has always been a thing - just another normal day in the life for him.

He can't remember a time that it wasn't  _a thing_.

(A thing, like: eccentric, odd, attention seeking Klaus who didn’t know when to stop pushing his luck.  _Grow up, stop pretending_ , and  _can you at least try to take this seriously? If not just don’t bother at all, Four. I’m serious_.

A thing, like: the liability of the group, desperate and afraid and rotting to his core. A weak point and an obtuse point, mind hovering somewhere between the line of fragility and strength, the balance so faint that it’s enough to drive him crazy. Enough to drive them all crazy.

A thing, like: the fraying edges of the vastly dissolving fragments of their life. The pictures of everything they know carved into sand and then, as quick as they’d appeared, being washed away with the tide. The last wisps of fire, burning and scorching and eventually, finally, destroying the very thing it set alight.

A thing, like: Klaus Hargreeves. Number Four. The Seance, the brother, and the adopted son.)

For Klaus, seeing the lingering presence of the dead in hallways or out the on the streets has always been a thing.

The ghosts have always been drawn to him, almost as if the air he breathes is an ocean and his very being catches them in a riptide they can’t escape from, washing them in closer and closer until he can’t tell who’s dead from who’s alive. Washing them so close he can’t tell whether it’s them drowning or him.

At first, Klaus recalls, it wasn’t all that bad being able to see the ghosts. They weren’t that visible when he was a child, nothing like they are now.

Being able to see them had been - not ideal, really, but manageable at least. His own twisted version of what normal was.

Klaus remembers the ghosts he used to see, can just about picture the faint outlines they appeared to him as. They were nothing but distortions of air, really. Just a weird second shadow that followed him around and whispered things to him. Whispered things  _at_ him.

That wasn’t scary, though. It was weird, sure, and sometimes annoying, but not scary. No, the scariness of ghosts came much later, right after the ---

 

* * *

 

When Klaus is four he becomes acutely aware of the fact that his father is always watching him with a frown.

His father frowns a lot, mind you, but there's something always more... Disappointed, say, about the frown he levels Klaus with. Something frustrated and impatient and tired.

Klaus doesn’t have a name yet, merely Number Four of seven, and all he knows is his siblings, their father, and Pogo. They live in an old manor and his father - a busy,  _busy_  man, an eccentric billionaire, the man who adopted them all - raises them for what he refers to as  _The End of the World_.

None of his siblings know what their father means by this, but they don’t question him, easily accepting the routines he puts in place and following the orders of whatever nanny he’s hired to oversee them. They trust him and listen to him and know better than to speak out of turn.

So, when Klaus is four with no real name, four and Four, he talks to the shadows and his father watches him with a frown.

They whisper to him, faint sounds that grow louder and louder, like when you’re rising closer to the surface after being submerged under water, and Klaus quickly learns that the only way to get them to shut up is to talk to them. So, that’s what Klaus does.

He talks, and he talks, and he talks. He tells them to shut up, tells them to go away, tells them about his day even though he’s not sure they really understand what he’s saying.

“I’m stuck,” a shadow is telling him. This one is about double his height, voice distorted and broken, and the air shimmering where it lingers. “I need help.”

“You’ve been following me around just fine,” Klaus argues, fighting the urge to stomp his foot in frustration.  _Do not throw tantrums, Number Four. You’re not two anymore and I won’t stand for this sort of behaviour any longer._ The shadow’s been following him all day, is the issue, and Klaus is long bored of listening to it repeat the same words over and over. “So sorr _y_ ,” he spits out the apology, tone drawling and disinterested. “If I don’t believe your story.”

“I’m stuck.” The shadow repeats, voice curling into a wail, something grating and high pitched that makes him shudder and duck his ears closer to his shoulders. “I’m  _stuck_.”

“You’re not stuck.” Klaus repeats firmly, unhunching himself and crossing his arms to glare at the shimmering spectre. “You’re a liar, is what you are.  _And_ you’re annoying.”

“I’m stuck. Help me.” The shadow moves towards him, movements jumpy and slowly. Something limb like stretching out towards Klaus then and it touches him before he can jump out of the way, the shadows hand punching through his chest.

Suddenly, jarringly, Klaus can't move, is stuck there as something cold and ugly and  _wrong_ flows through him.

Something like a cold chill starts to radiate from where the shadow is touching him, tendrils of iciness spreading across his chest and leaving him gasping. It feels horrid and makes his chest go tight, stomach queasy in the same way it was when watched Ben break  his finger whilst slamming a door.

“Stop it,” Klaus chokes out, voice high and knees trembling. He tries to move away, but his limbs don't cooperate properly and the thing follows him, insistent and more desperate now it has hold of him. “Stop. Go away - leave me  _alone_.” He begs, teeth starting to chatter. _“Stop.”_

The thing in his chest clenches then, like it’s curling its non-existent hand into a fist, and Klaus feels a wave of nausea run through him, tears prickling his eyes. The sounds around him turn into static and Klaus can feel it dancing under his skin, something burning and blue and freezing everything it touches.

Something drags within him like nails on a chalkboard and Klaus lets out a winded noise, mind abruptly turning blank, thoughts evaporating into wisps of air and leaving him breathless and oddly detached.

“Help me,” the voice says again, clearer this time. Angrier. “You need to help me.”

“Stop,” Klaus rasps, shutting his eyes when the shadow starts to grow more solid, appearance firming up and becoming something too human for Klaus’ mind to comprehend. “Stop it.”

“Four?” A voice asks. Two.

(Two, Two,  _Two._ )

“Help,” Klaus pleads, voice overlapping with the shadow in front of him. “It won’t,” He takes a shuddering breath, trying to force the words out as he looks towards his brother in desperation, “leave me alone.”

Two steps closer, a frown on his face, and Klaus wonders how his brother can be so young and look so serious at the same time. Two's eyes are alert as they scan the hallway, are bright and looking for danger, but they pass over it as if there isn’t a shadow trying to claw its way into Klaus’ chest.

“Who w-won’t?” Two asks. There’s a knife in his hand, small and blunted but sharp enough to embed when Two throws it hard enough.

“This  _thing_ ,” Klaus takes a deep breath and tries to shake the shadow loose, tries to shake the empty floaty feeling in his mind away. The shadow growls lowly at him in return, hand still embedded into Klaus’ chest and clawing fruitlessly.

It feels like the thing is trying to grab a hold of something but, for whatever reason, it can’t. Instead all that happens is a pulsing sensation, waves of cold that echo around Klaus’ chest in time with the empty curling of the shadow’s fingers.

It’s uncomfortable and alarming but Klaus reminds himself that the shadow can’t actually do him any harm.

The shadows aren’t real like he is, Klaus knows. Their bodies are nothing but air and coldness, shimmering beams that reflect through Klaus to create a rainbow of light.

This is the first time a shadow has pushed its way so close to him, though. It’s the first time Klaus has ever felt something other than a curious annoyance towards one. He… He doesn’t want to be scared, because his father hates it when he’s scared, and Klaus hates it even more when he’s scared, but the feeling of something pressing into his very being like it’s trying to pull him apart leaves him shaking.

“It keeps saying it’s stuck.” Klaus takes another step back and the thing’s arm flickers like static as it’s tugged slightly out of his chest. “It’s trying to- I don’t know. It’s stuck.”  _In me,_  he doesn’t say. Can't say.

Two blinks at him, eyes moving towards where the shadow is but passing over it once again.

He can’t see it, Klaus knows. Nobody can ever seem to see the shadows but him. The good thing about Two finding him, though, is that Two will believe him. Or, more accurately, if he doesn’t believe Klaus’ stories of the shadows, he always believe in Klaus’ wet cheeks and damp eyelashes, always believes in his shuddering breaths and trembling palms.

Whatever truths the other boy always finds, it’s enough for him to help, to humour Klaus enough to step forward with a sturdy confidence that makes something in Klaus feel safer.

“Ag-g-gain?” Two asks. He crowds in, forehead creasing in irritation, regardless of the fact he can’t see whatever it is that’s trying to hold Klaus hostage, his small hands curling into fists.

Klaus nods, voice lost, eyes returning to the shadow in front of him. The thing is a dense black mess now, it’s outline that of something like - like a girl, maybe. Like a teenage girl with long wispy hair and-

Klaus doesn’t want to look. He doesn’t want to know.

The shadow, whatever it is, seems to be ignoring Two as much as Two is ignoring it, and Klaus mourns that fact that neither of them can seem to see each other. It’s always seemed so weird to Klaus that his family and the shadows can’t interact, but then again, their whole family is  _weird_. He shouldn't find it so disappointing.

“Leave him alone.” Two says firmly, stutter vanishing in the face of helping Klaus out. It makes the cloudiness in his mind die down, something warm rising within him at his brothers’ words, like the sun breaking through the clouds after a storm.

Even though the other boy claims to never see the shadows, Two always tells them to go away, his stance firm and voice leaving no room for argument. It’s the same voice he uses to argue with One and, although it doesn’t actually make the shadows disappear, it makes Klaus feel better at least.

Often, all it takes is having somebody on his side for Klaus to find enough determination within him to shake the shadows for good.

“Leave me alone.” Klaus repeats his brothers’ words, leaning in towards Two’s warmth and away from the cold pressure that’s built in front of him and is flowing through his veins. “Go away.”

Something in Klaus clicks back into place when Two nudges their shoulders together and the shadow shudders, whines high and hurt as it’s body morphs into something less tangible. It shrinks itself back into the wall and Klaus can finally suck a big breath into his aching lungs, can let it out shakily as the icy feeling recedes.

His chest still feels too tight, head starting to pound behind his eyes, but the thing had listened to them both which was  _amazing_. Klaus huffs a small laugh that could be a sob, the current of emotions inside of him swirling and making him lean into Two’s side more firmly.

A tiny part of him still feels rattled by the whole ordeal, a part of him that leaves his hands shaking and his lashes wet, but Klaus chooses to shrug the feeling off and shove it into the back of his mind.

 _Emotional outbursts are a weakness, Number Four_ , his father's voice echoes in his mind.  _Do not force me to take further measures to remind you of this_.

The shadow had listened, had backed off, and that’s all what matters. He can’t care if the thing made him feel wrong, if it pressed into him as if it was trying to grasp onto his very soul and devour it.

They can’t hurt him. They can’t do any real damage. They (aren’t real, Four. Nothing is there, Four. It’s just in your mind, Four.) can’t do anything.

Klaus has mostly found the shadows to be annoying in all their loud persistence and demanding voices. He tries to outdo them most of the time, figuring that if he’s somehow louder and more dramatic than they are, then maybe they’ll shut up and leave him alone.

It hasn’t worked yet, but Klaus remains hopeful.

“Good?” Two asks, knocking their shoulders together in silent comfort, a warm and strong presence at his side, familiar and safe and smelling like the same brand of soap they all use.

Klaus nods, eyes moving away from where the shadow has melted into the wall to stare at his brother instead. Two is looking at him in concern, face pinched awkwardly and expression radiating a genuine worry. Klaus doesn’t want to worry his siblings, not when the problem is solved, so he nods again, a smallsmile twitching at his lips.

It doesn’t matter that Klaus had felt a cold presence trying to shove him into the dark corners of his mind. It doesn’t matter that there’s bile in the back of his throat and tears still in his eyes. The shadows might be overwhelmingly  _weird_ , but his brother is always so trustingly stable.

Two’s eyes scan the hallway again, passing right over the shadow, before landing back on Klaus with his own small, decisive nod.

“Good.” Two grabs onto Klaus’ wrist then, grip firm yet gentle as he begins to tug Klaus down the hallway. “Eng-ng. English.” The other boy tells him.

Klaus hums as they walk, head twisting to stare at where the shadow is lingering by the wall, quiet and radiating a silent anger. Klaus shivers, short and sharp, as he remembers the feeling of its cold grip, of its icy hand and snarling voice, of its-

He shakes his head and forces it all into a box in the back of his mind, turning back around to link his and Two’s arms together, choosing to cling from his brothers’ side and distract himself.

English. Right. Great fun.

Klaus takes in another measured breath and thinks about English. He thinks about letters and the way he’s being forced to learn cursive writing; he thinks of phonics and the books they read. He shakes off whatever uneasy feeling had lingered within him and purposely doesn’t think about –

English. He’s only thinking about English. He can’t be distracted during the lesson, not when it’s slowly become his favourite subject.

Klaus thinks about the way both him and Two hate their English tutor. He thinks about the way their tutor seems to hate both in return. He thinks about why that is.

Their tutor hates Two for choosing to remain silent rather than stutter his way through a story with them all watching, and she hates Klaus because he likes to draw the attention away from his sulking brother by being what their tutor calls a ‘terrible and disruptive nuisance’.

Klaus has grown to love English for this reason alone, him and Two finding a mutual solace and comradely in seeing who can annoy their tutor the most.

Silence versus ruckus.

Glares versus laughter.

Two versus Four.

The shadow doesn’t follow him, and Klaus doesn’t think about it.

(he doesn't he doesn't he  _doesn't_ )

 

* * *

 

The shadow who’s decided to trail after Klaus today is a lot nicer than any of the others he’s seen over the past few months.

It’s one of the more talkative ones, distorted voice following Klaus wherever he goes and offering odd titbits of information. It chooses to talk  _to_  him instead of  _at_ him which is a nice change. This shadow can form halting sentences and, when Klaus focuses on listening, it can even hold up a conversation for a short while.

Klaus finds himself somewhat enjoying the company. He’s always keen to talk to anyone who will listen, to distract himself from the voices and his own jumbled thoughts, and this shadow seems to enjoy being acknowledged.

“There used to be a tree in the garden as well, you know.”

“There’s still a tree out there now.” Klaus scoffs. He points down into the wet courtyard where a small oak tree stands proudly, skinny branches bristling in the wind.

“Not that tree,” the shadow huffs. “A bigger tree. A massive one.”

“A  _massive_ tree?” Klaus squints through the rain but doesn’t see anything bar the lone tree, cobblestone and freshly cut grass.

“Y-es.” The shadow says, stumbling over the word as if it’s a struggle to get it out. It’s been talking to Klaus for the better part of half hour now and, like the other shadows, its voice had seemed to dim and grow faint the longer it had interacted with him. “Tall. Wide.”

Klaus tries to picture what the shadow has been trying to describe to him over the past ten minutes, trying to force all the small bits of history into a single image. “What sort of tree?” he presses, struggling to create the image the other boy is trying to paint. “What – I don’t know. Breed? Family?”

“Dunno,” the shadow shrugs. Klaus watches in the window as it steps up next to him, its presence radiating a biting chill and its reflection nothing but a shimmering light. “A tall one. Used to have a treehouse.”

“A treehouse?” Klaus demands, turning wide eyes onto the shadow. He’s heard of treehouses - has seen pictures of them in books and has listened to Three try to describe the one she saw when she was out with their new nanny buying new clothes. “ _Here?_  At the Academy?”

“Yes,” The shadows head flickers, buzzing like a spike of electricity in what Klaus presumes is a nod. “My brother and father built it.”

“Cool.” Klaus breathes, turning his eyes back onto the garden. There’s no tree out there anymore, not like the one the shadow has been trying to describe, but when the thing points Klaus can see the outline of where one could have been, a large circular hole of dirt amidst the cobble that’s full of flowers. “I wish that-”

“Number Four.” His father’s voice comes from behind him, unimpressed and flat, making him jump.

“Father.” Klaus spins around and offers a bright smile, hands folding behind his back. He knows he won’t get a smile in return, but their new nanny – Grace – has encouraged them all to grin and to have manners. She should probably encourage their father to be politer too, Klaus thinks. The old man  _never_ smiles, especially not at Klaus, not even when he tells one of his best jokes. Instead his father only ever frowns at him in disappointed frustration. “Hello." Klaus rocks on his heels. "Fancy seeing you here.”

His father ignores his greeting, giving a short clipped, “I don’t want you lingering in the hallways,” as he beckons Klaus with a hand, head tilting towards the living room.

In the living room are his siblings, each of them scattered across the furniture during their hour of downtime.

In the living room is his homework, the sheets of paper left sprawled over the coffee table where Klaus had thrown them.

In the living room are three shadows, all of them loud and snarling and being a general nuisance.

“It’s too loud in there.” Klaus complains, trying to force the whine out of his voice. His father  _hates_  whining. “Can’t I sit out here today? Just until dinner?”

“No, Number Four. Come.”

“But father.” Klaus presses. For some reason he turns to the shadow next to him for help, but the thing only shrugs at him, not seeming the least bit bothered. Klaus huffs, eyes narrowing.

“Number Four.” His father repeats impatiently. “I said come.”

“You’re no help.” Klaus tells the shadow sourly as he slinks off towards his father.

“I beg your pardon, boy?” Father asks, forehead creasing and lips pinching as he glares down at Klaus’ reluctantly approaching figure.

“Not you, sir.” Klaus turns his head to glare at where the shadow still lingers by the window, his father following his gaze, frown still in place.

“Imaginary friends again?” His father doesn’t sound impressed by this - not that their father ever sounds impressed with anything Klaus does - but Klaus isn’t in the mood to argue with the old man today.

They’re not imaginary, whatever it is he sees. The shadows are real. Klaus knows this without a doubt, even if he can’t seem to prove it to anyone.

“You’re almost five now, Number Four.” His father tuts, hand gripping onto his shoulder and pushing him along the corridor.  “None of your siblings have ever entertained this stupid notion of needing to create friends, not when they have each other. Can’t you at least try to follow their example and grow up?”

Klaus keeps his lips sealed, eyes trained on his socked feet as his father guides him away from the window and the talkative shadow near it.

“I’m tired of being disappointed in you, boy.” His father continues. “All of your siblings are showing remarkable progress and yet here you are, separating yourself during your designated quiet time with them to stare out of the window and talk to yourself about nonsensical things.”

“We were talking about the garden, actually.” Klaus can’t help but bite out, something in him angry and embarrassed at being scolded so undeservingly. “About the treehouse that used to be there.”

He misses the expression that flashes over his father's face at his words, dislodging the man's grip on him to sulk into the lounge area, door thudding loudly against the wall as he shoves it open.

If Klaus were to have looked, he would’ve seen surprise and disbelief flash over his father's face for a mere second before it dissolved into interest.

Klaus missed that though, instead throwing himself onto the sofa and knocking into Ben, not feeling his father's eyes, heavy with intent, on his back.

 

* * *

 

All of them have allocated training days.

There's seven days in a week which means an afternoon a day for each of them. Klaus has Thursday’s and it’s usually spent with his father trying to force his power out of him.

_This time is meant to prove your worth to me, Number Four. This is not a punishment, but an opportunity._

So far, this past month they’ve tried throwing things which ended in a cut palm, a crying Number Seven , and a frustrated Pogo. They’ve tried seeing if he can turn invisible which consisted of him holding back laughter as his father demanded that he disappear. They even tried to see if he could shift into something different which had left Klaus driving his crazy as he pretended to be all sorts of different animals.

The best one over the past month, though, was the afternoon they spent seeing if he could read minds. He somehow managed to convince his father that reading minds was his power and Klaus had managed to keep the act going for two days until he got caught out.

During those two days Klaus had basked in the attention, whispering more and more exaggerated half truths about his siblings to each other and then sitting back to watch the chaos unfold. He got caught out eventually, sure, but his grand finale had consisted of Two attacking One with Five’s verbal support.

One had called him an idiot once he'd found out,snarling and trying to make a jump at him before Pogo stepped in, Three had shot him her disappointed sister face, eyes dark and arms folded, and Six had slapped him on the back with an impressed smile.  

It had lost him dinner, but it had been so, so worth it.

Not knowing his power is  _boring_  and his father keeps dropping perfect opportunities for mischief into his lap. What is Klaus meant to do? Not abuse the temptation that’s put in front of him?

All his siblings had found their talents naturally, annoyingly enough. Two’s precision had been obvious, as had One’s strength and the monsters inside of Six’s chest. Three had always had a way with words, able to twist them in such a way that you wouldn’t question what she asked of you, and Five jumping through space was always a big give away to what his power was.

Their father has slowly started to introduce group training, too, but Klaus isn’t allowed to participate in that yet, much to his dismay. His father wants to keep him separated until his powers are known just in case he hurts somebody or somehow messes up the routine his father has put in place for the others.

Klaus doesn't really understand the point of keeping him separated, having never shown any signs of being dangerous or powerful, but he’s learnt not to question his father. At least, not to his or One’s face.

Today when Klaus walks into the foyer to meet his father, things are different.

Usually Klaus will be taken into the living room and sat on the couch opposite his father, equipment laid out on the coffee table in front of him and his Pogo's wary face looming in the doorway.

His father has a different gleam in his eye today, something sharp and calculating that isn't usually there when it comes to Klaus, and Pogo is nowhere in sight.

It makes Klaus pause mid-step, body tensing under the weight of his father’s expression, before he slowly forces himself further into the room.

His father stands with his arms folded behind his back and a not quite smile on his face, staring down at him in - in _interest._

In front of them is a table with three chairs around it, two on one side and one opposite them. The single side is for his father, this point evident from the large pile of documents on it, some in folders and others sprawled in what Klaus presumes is a specific order, and the red notebook with the golden _RH_ on it's cover.

The other side - _Klaus'_ side - is empty, save from a glass of water.

It’s different to what Klaus is used to, and it makes something in his stomach drop, a sinking weight in the ocean, and his thoughts scatter, smoke caught in a breeze. It makes him feel nervous.

Different can be good, Klaus has heard, but he’s never known it be anything other than bad when it comes to his father.

When the old man gestures towards one of the chairs, Klaus hesitantly steps forward and sinks down, eyes trying to peer at the documents opposite him with no luck.

“Hello, sir.” Klaus says politely, unnerved by his father's expression when he takes a seat opposite him.

“Number Four.” his father returns in greeting. He continues without a pause, leaving no room for Klaus to adjust before he jumps straight into whatever weird experiment he's set up for today. “After some consideration, I want you to tell me more about this friend of yours.”

Klaus blinks once, twice, hands jittery where they sit in his lap. “My… friend?” he repeats slowly. Uncertainly.

“Yes.” His father leans forward, eyes intent as if he’s trying to dissect Klaus with his gaze alone. “The one that was telling you about the treehouse.”

“Oh,” Klaus shifts, turning his head to stare at the shadow lurking by the doorway. He doesn’t really consider the shadows to be his  _friends_ , despite the fact his family refers to them as his imaginary ones. “Them.”

“They’re here?” His father sounds pleased by this, eyes searching the corner Klaus is staring at.

“Yeah.” Klaus shifts, turning to look back at his father. “They’ve been following me around.”

“Interesting,” his father pulls his notebook closer to him, flicking through pages of scrawled notes. “Very interesting.”

“I  _have_ told you this before.” Klaus points out. He’s told his father this countless of times. He’s asked the man to help him get rid of the shadows and to help Klaus understand what they are, to listen to him and to explain to him what’s happening. His father has only ever treated him with annoyance at these words, though. With frustration and disappointment.

“I suppose you have.” His father agrees, pausing in his search. His eyes are considering as he leans back in his chair and regards Klaus curiously, as if he’s a puzzle that needs solving.

It’s not a look Klaus is used to, and it makes him feel – uneasy, maybe. Uncomfortable.

He doesn’t want his father to catch onto his nerves though, so he stares back defiantly, neither of them backing down. And then, when the silence grows uncomfortable and the air tense, his father says something that really, truly, makes Klaus start to doubt everything. “I should have listened to you, Number Four.”

Klaus blinks. He doesn’t – what is he meant to do with  _that_.

He has no clue how to process that statement, no idea where to start, and wonders what game his father is trying to play with him now.

Reginald Hargreeves is many things, but apologetic is never one of them. Although the man didn’t say sorry, the sentence sounds like the closest Klaus has ever heard his father coming to an apology.

“Tell it to come over here then, boy.” His father continues, moment fading and all halting regret gone as quick as it appeared.

“What?” Klaus blinks, thrown once again by the words leaving his father’s mouth. He subtly pinches the skin of his wrist with his fingers, letting his nails bite in when he doesn’t wake up.

“Your friend.” His father explains shortly, sounding impatient which is, at least, familiar ground. “Tell it to come over here.”

Klaus lets go of his skin, feeling uncertain about the turn of events. Nobody ever listens to Klaus or his stories of the shadows, especially not his Father, but here they are: Reginald staring at Klaus as if he’s something special, something worth his time, and inquiring about the shadows that have haunted Klaus his whole life.

Suddenly, irrationally, Klaus  _doesn’t_  want to call the shadow over.

His father taking an interest in them makes him want to protest and keep quiet and, for the first time in his life, Klaus is tempted to deny any and all topics relating to the shadows.

His father is never impressed with him, is never kind to him, and Klaus doesn’t know what it means now that the old man is trying. He doesn’t know what to with the knowledge that not only is his father listening to Klaus, but he believes him, too.

Klaus thinks about the consequences of lying, thinks about saying that he made the whole thing up, that it truly was just imaginary friends after all, but the shadow has moved to his side. Its dark mass climbs up onto the empty chair next to him and Klaus can’t pretend that he’s not seeing it, that he hasn’t been talking to it for days.

It looks more solid today, Klaus notes, outline clearer than it’s been all week.

It can also hear his fathers’ words, apparently, which is disconcerting.

“Is it here?” His father asks, watching Klaus stare apprehensively at the chair next.

“Yeah.” Klaus says after a moment, deciding that there’s no more harm in telling the truth than there is to lie. “It’s sitting next to me.”

“Good.” His father smiles and there’s something dangerous about it that makes Klaus’ palms start to sweat, leg starting to jitter where it hangs above the floor. “Now, what’s its name, Four?”

“It doesn’t have a name.” Klaus says. The shadows never have names - they’re just shadows.

“I do,” the thing next to him says, voice crackling like static and making Klaus pause. He looks over at the shadow in bewilderment, wondering where the things got all this sudden confidence from. “I do.”

“You do?” Klaus presses, unimpressed with this sudden turn of events.

“George.” The shadow says. “My name is George.”

“You never told me that.” Klaus protests. “I even  _asked_  you and you  _never_  told me that.”

“I wasn’t strong enough to remember,” the shadow tells him in a grating voice, high and cracking. “I am now.”

“What?” Klaus feels something uneasy run through him. He frowns at the shadow, watching as the black mass of its head twists to stare back. It doesn’t have eyes, face a blank slate of dark translucency, but Klaus feels like the shadow is frowning at him somehow.

“My name is George.” the shadow repeats, turning dismissively away from Klaus to stare at his father. The shadows don’t normally interact with anything other than Klaus, but this one has been acting up over the past few days, had started commenting on his siblings and his routines. Klaus had put it down to him being tired, but the words  _I wasn’t strong enough to remember_  echo in his mind.

“Well?” his father asks

Klaus isn't usually scared of the shadows, really, but he suddenly feels terribly, shakily, uncomfortable of the cold presence beside him. This whole situation feels wrong - feels alien and strange and the opposite of how everything should be going.

His father shouldn’t be listening to Klaus, shouldn’t be accepting his stories, and the shadows shouldn’t be listening to his father.

This isn’t how it  _works_.

“George.” Klaus repeats reluctantly, eyes still trained on the dark mass beside him.

“Ah,” his father draws his attention, nodding to himself as if Klaus has just confirmed something vital. “Just as I thought.”

“What do you mean?” Klaus scowls. “ _Just as you thought_  what?”

“George Smith.” His father states, staring at Klaus intently. “Deceased at the age of seven.”

“What?” Klaus feels a lump in his throat then, something tight and constricting that stops him from breathing properly.

“The flu,” his father tuts with a shake of his head. “Pneumonia. It killed him a long time ago.” Klaus blinks, eyes drifting from his father's determined gaze to the shadow of a boy besides him. The shadow – the boy – doesn’t move, but it’s body flickers in what Klaus has come to recognise as a shadows anger.

“He used to live here,” Father continues, unaware of the shadows growing rage, “before I acquired the building. It was merely a shop back then, an old manner owned by an old family.” His father taps the files in front of him with his pen. “His father sold the place to me after his son died.”

Klaus doesn't move. Can't move.

He doesn't know if what his father is saying is true, but somehow it makes sense, and that’s the scary part. The shadow had known so much about the house, had told Klaus about the garden and he’d seen it lingering of Seven’s room a lot of the time, sighing wistfully whenever Klaus was close enough to hear it.

“I'm dead?” the shadow -  _George_  - says in a hollow voice, the reverting tones sounding low and warped to Klaus’ ears. “I'm dead?”

“The treehouse,” his father’s long, crooked fingers pull out an old looking photo and slide it across the table.

Klaus looks down on autopilot and sees an old picture of their courtyard, more weed laden than usual. To the left in the photograph is a tree, tall and thick with a small house built into its branches.

It makes the lump in Klaus’ throat grow, the sudden uneasiness spiking.

“I cut the thing down when I moved in.” His father says. “The chances of you guessing about it were next to none, Four. Even with your overactive imagination.”

“What are you saying?” Klaus asks, voice coming out small and wobbly.

“These friends,” his father gestures to the chair next to him, to the room around them, and then to Klaus. “These ghosts. They’re your power, Number Four.” He looks at Klaus proudly and it’s that which makes his vision start to blur. “The Seance.”

Klaus doesn't know what that word means - seance - but he hates it already. He  _hates_ it. He hates the way his father croons the word as if it’s something amazing, hates the way his father watches him with a quiet appreciation, hates the sudden knowledge that everything he thought he knew has been a lie.

“I thought...” Klaus doesn't want to say that he thought the shadows weren't real, because that’s not true. Klaus has always known that the shadows have been real, but this is different. Nobody's ever believed him before, not like this, and it makes him feel like he’s drowning.

He's always been told the shadows were in his mind, that they were nothing but a part of his overactive imagination, a part of his  _Klausness,_ but now what?

Is Klaus supposed to believe that the shadows are - are  _ghosts_?

Is he supposed to believe that his power is being some sort of doorway for the dead?

“It seems that I overlooked your power, Number Four.” The lights above them glint off his father monocle as he stares down at Klaus. “But now we know, I can finally create the perfect training routine for you, and together we can unlock your true potential.”

“I’m dead?” The shadow repeats, voice distorting into something deeper, more panicked.

Klaus looks to it, a sensation like water rising in his throat making his breathing turn unsteady.

“I’m sorry,” Klaus chokes out, staring as the figure next to him shudders and flickers. “I didn't know.”

“Help me.” The shadow twists to face him, the words echoing that of all the other shadows that follow Klaus around. “Help me.”

“I didn’t know,” Klaus repeats. “I didn’t – I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

Its form shifts at his words, shadowy mass rippling and morphing, and something within Klaus shifts with it. There a slight tug from behind his navel, sharp and quick, and it makes a shiver run all the way through his body, nerves alight for a brief second.

The shadow changes then, form growing and it’s voice cracking as it pleads with him, “help me. Four, help. You need to help me.”

“Stop,” Klaus cries, tears burning in his eyes. The shadow moves towards him, body firming into something more human than he’s ever seen the shadows look before. Arms - because they can’t be anything  _but_  arms, can't be anything but hands and finger like claws - stretch out towards him. “Stop.” Klaus begs. “Stop it.”

“Number Four,” his father commands and Klaus looks desperately towards the other man for help, for comfort, but his father just watches him curiously, pen hovering over his notebook. “What’s happening?”

“It’s,” Klaus breath hitches, tears running down his face as the shadow next to him shudders, ghostly features appearing as a young and rotting face. “I-it’s.” The ghost stares at Klaus with wide, dead eyes, skin morphing into a sickly pale pallor.

It looks at Klaus as if Klaus is the only thing in the world, eyes full of blame and hurt and anger. The boy’s dark hair flops over his head, beads of sweat running down a sharp face as a trickle of blood runs from its nose, and suddenly Klaus find’s it all too real.

“Make it stop.” Klaus begs his father in a hitching voice, the water that had been rising in his throat pouring into his mouth and making him choke. “Please, father.” He feels scared. Klaus feels so, so scared. “Please make it stop.”

“Make what stop, Number Four?” The man presses.

“It’s - he’s-”

“Help me.” The boy growls, blood flecking his pale lips as he snarls the words. “Help me, Four.”

“Stop it.” Klaus begs. He doesn’t like this. He doesn’t like seeing this monster next to him. The shadows have always been just that -  _shadows_.

They’ve never been real in a human sense, have always been shaded and different and odd.

To see something so human looking sitting next to him now, all pale skin and glassy eyes, is suddenly, unthinkably, terrifying.

This person - this thing - is  _dead_.

It’s dead and it’s stuck here and it’s begging Klaus for help and Klaus has no idea what to do, has no idea how to help.

Klaus  _doesn’t_   _know_   _what_   _to_   _do_  and- and-

The thing next to him starts screaming, voice cracking and gurgling and so,  _so_  loud.

Klaus presses his hands over his ears, own voice cracking as he begs it to stop, to stop please, please.

When he looks towards his father - desperate and scared and confused - the man is making notes, eyes watching Klaus clinically and offering no comfort.

“Please,” Klaus begs, curling up smaller in the chair, the water in his mouth turning stagnant as the air around him starts to smell of rot and decay. “Please make it stop.”

 

* * *

 

After that, things are different.

The shadows aren’t shadows anymore, something in him mangled and raw that the things - the ghosts - seem to latch onto to with a renewed urgency.

It feels like when that ghost had tried reaching for him and had somehow grasped onto his very being and pulled at it, twisting his insides and leaving him sick for hours after Two had found him.

Whatever happened that afternoon with his father makes the ghosts appear how they were in life instead of just shadowy figures that aren’t really there. It gives them height and definition and makes them feel disturbingly real to Klaus.

It makes them terrible in a way the shadows never were, too. It makes them tangible, makes everything so confusing for him. His mind struggles, heart hurts, and he finds himself unable to distinguish what’s real from what’s not.

Klaus confuses people in the street for ghosts and confuses ghosts for strangers who have somehow snuck their way into the house.

Sometimes it’s obvious who’s who, the ghosts bloodied and bruised and rotting as they lose their grip on reality, the only words coming from their lips being the desperate “help me’s,” that follow Klaus around. Other times the ghosts appear so normal and it takes a while for Klaus to realise that the person he’s talking too isn’t really there at all. Sometimes it can take too long.

And it’s that, maybe, that frightens him more than anything. It’s not so much the dead people, but instead the thought behind it - the knowledge that the person he’s talking to doesn’t exist anymore. It's the thought of these ghosts being shadows in a way Klaus had never realised.

It’s the thought of death, of having your life taken from you, and yet still being stuck here as an echo of what you once were.

It’s knowing that these people are trapped and angry and alone with only Klaus to see, to speak to, and that Klaus can’t bring himself to do it because they’re  _dead_ and they’re  _trapped,_  and Klaus has never been able to help himself, let alone others.

 

* * *

 

 

The fear he feels only grows as he gets older, as he meets more and more ghosts and loses himself among them.

The way they cling to life, desperate and angry, and can only interact with him, makes him shake and twitch and want to hide away from the world. From the inescapable and crumbling world that brings pain and hurt and sickness.

Klaus tries to be nice at first, tries to be understanding despite the fear that convulses through him, but the ghosts grow angrier at him. No matter how hard he tries the ghosts become feral and, if they hadn’t done so already, they lose whatever sane grip on reality they had.

They blame Klaus in the end. Always.

They follow him around and scream so loudly that he can’t hear himself think and it always ends in the ghosts withering and rotting into nothing in front of him.

 

* * *

 

“Klaus,” Ben repeats, staring at him in quiet fondness. There's a lingering awe still surrounding the word as he says, eyes bright and giddy as he says, “it suits you.”

“I know.” Klaus grins. His new name sounds way better than Number Four ever had.

It's still weird to hear it, still takes a few calls for Klaus to comprehend that somebody's addressing him, but it’s  _amazing_. Having a proper name is amazing. Ben has taken to his name a lot better, desperately responding to anything other than Number Six, and the two of them have taken to calling out each other’s new names at any given opportunity.

“Ben is nice, too.” Klaus offers belatedly. Genuinely. And then, “it’s not as nice as Klaus, but still.”

“It's  _so_ much better than Klaus.” Ben argues. He reaches out to slap at Klaus who bats his hands away with a loud cry.

Ben keeps trying though, hands reaching out to slap at Klaus who in turn grabs his wrists and tries to shove the other boy away.

“Klaus is better.” Klaus says, twisting Ben’s arms and managing to get the upper hand for a few seconds before Ben easily overpowers him. A hand manages to slap Klaus’ cheek as Klaus furtively tries to stop him and Klaus lets out a pained noise. “Klaus,” Klaus says loudly, “is way, way, way, way-”

“Ben is way, way-” Ben calls over the top of him, using Klaus’ grip on his arms to pull him off balance, forcing Klaus to fall onto his back. “Way, way, way, better.”

“Would you both,” Five says from the sofa, “shut up?”

Klaus and Ben pause mid wrestle, shouts dying as they both look up at their brother from the floor. Five is glaring steadily at the book in his hands, stubbornly refusing to look their way in attempt to seem unbothered. He said something, though, which gives him away in Klaus’ mind.

“Aw don't be like that,” Klaus pouts, amusement bubbling at his brother’s frustration. “Ben can’t help it if he’s jealous of the name mom gave me.”

“Jealous?” Ben splutters. He shoves Klaus away from him, sitting up and running a hand through his ruffled hair with an exasperated look. “You  _wish_ , idiot.”

“You’re an idiot.” Klaus mimics childishly, staying in his spot sprawled across the floor. “Ben the idiot.”

“Klaus the idiot.” Ben says back in a whiney imitation.

“Ben the dummkopf.” Klaus taunts, smirking when Ben huffs at him. “My dummer bruder.”

“Shut.” Five repeats slowly before Ben can retort. “Up.” His fingers clench on the cover of his book. “I’m trying to focus.”

“Sorry, brother mine.” Klaus reaches out a hand to curl it around Fives ankle, taking small comfort in the warmth and sturdiness of it. “I didn’t mean to distract you from your riveting tale on,” he tilts his head, squinting up at Five’s book. “ _The Fabric of the Cosmos_. Huh. Nerd.”

Five leg twitches in Klaus’ grip and his brother lets out a small sigh, but he doesn’t try and escape Klaus’ hold.

Lately, the ghosts have been more disorientating than ever. It's confusing (so so  _so_ confusing) trying to tell who's alive from who's dead and sometimes Klaus slips, finds himself lost somewhere between the line of the different worlds, cold and shuddering and distant. Some days he finds himself sitting there watching the world go by, half convinced that he's already dead and, on those days, he becomes desperate to prove to himself otherwise.

It’s unhealthy, Diego tells him, but Klaus would rather live jumping to and from the opposite ends of extreme then let his mind linger of the thought of being dead. So, Klaus finds himself either utterly distanced, trying to force himself far away from everything around him, or dangerously on edge, forcing himself into situations that remind him that he’s alive, that make his heart beat and his body tremble.

If he lingered in-between, if he didn’t jump to and from these extremes, then the world would melt into grey. It’d dissolve around him and he’d be lingering somewhere less manic, less confusing, but if he let that happen then Klaus is worried he’d lose himself along with it. He's worried he'll blur into nothingness, like a painting left out to battered by the elements, bleached by the sun and devoured by the rain.

So, if he must pick between a bright overwhelming vibrancy or a dull, discoloured blankness, he’ll always pick one over the other. He can’t let himself fade away in the crossover, refuses to linger and think about what would happen if he did.

Touch helps, no matter what state he finds himself in. It's grounding and comforting and, although his siblings sometimes look down on his clinginess in annoyance, most of them let him linger and touch.

“You're annoying.” Five tells him withno real heat behind his words.

“Come on, don’t be like that, Lou-”

“No.” Five glares over the top of the book, finally giving all his attention to Klaus, eyes dark and face unimpressed.

“Lo-” Klaus tries again.

“No.” Five kicks his foot out of Klaus’ hold and shoves at his shoulder with it. “Don't.”

It doesn't hurt, not really, but Klaus wouldn't be Klaus if he didn't overreact just to get a reaction in turn. “Oh god,” Klaus cries, clutching at his arm and rolling over into Ben's lap, his face pressed against the other boy’s thigh. “He's broken my arm, Ben.”

“One, it was you shoulder and not your arm. Two, don’t think that I won’t break your other one,” Ben ruffles his hair before shoving him off. “If you don't stop being annoying.”

“My two brothers,” Klaus clutches at his heart, staring up at the ceiling and trying to ignore the hanging figure he sees there. “Finding equal ground on a subject so hurtful.”

“Hurtful?” Ben asks. “More like honest.”

“I’m not annoying.” Klaus argues. “You guys are just, like, unappreciative of my awesomeness.”

“I dunno, Klaus. Me and Five-”

“Five and I.” Five pipes up.

“You and  _Lou-”_ Klaus starts, only to be rudely interrupted.

“No.” Five snaps. “My name is Five. Either you address me that way or you don’t talk to or about me at all, understood?”

“But  _why_?” Klaus asks.

FFive hates the name their mom had given, and Klaus has no idea why.

They’ve had their new names for almost three days now and the novelty of them has yet to wear off for all of them. Well, almost all of them.

Five, for some unknown reason, adamantly refuses to be called by the name Mother chose for him and nobody really understands why. Most of his siblings have let the subject go under Five’s death glare, but Klaus can’t stop thinking about it, mind circling round and round and round.

“I don’t need a new name.” Five shrugs, going back to his book and dismissing Klaus once again.

“But it’s a nice name!” Klaus argues. “It’s - you know. Pretty.”

“Pretty.” Five repeats flatly, eyes trained on the pages in front of him.

“Very pretty.”

Five shrugs. “Five is pretty.”

“But-”

“Klaus,” Ben interrupts. When Klaus looks over his brother shakes his head once, eyes telling Klaus to shut up and expression pleading.

 _Drop it_ , Ben doesn’t say. “The name Five is way better.” is what he taunts Klaus with. “It makes Klaus sound common.”

“Common?” Klaus demands, outraged. “ _Common_? You’re going to sit there and tell me that here, in the middle of America, the name  _Klaus_  is  _common_?”

“Yes.” Ben nods. Five relaxes on the sofa above them and Klaus feels a pang of guilt at trying to force his brother to explain himself.

He wants to understand, to figure out what Five’s issue is, to try and  _help,_  but he decides there and then that it doesn’t matter. It's whatever. If Five wants to be called Five, then that’s fine with Klaus. That’s more than fine with Klaus. Five suits Five way more, anyway.

Ben smiles at him in silent thanks for dropping the subject before lettings out a teasing, “commoner.”

“Says  _Ben_.” Klaus reaches out a long leg in a half-attempted kick at Ben’s face.

“Yes, says  _Ben_.” Ben catches his ankle, pinning his leg to the floor, so Klaus reaches out with his other foot to try and kick him away. “Ben,” his brother continues, easily grabbing his other ankle, “the wonderful, exotic, brother.”

“I’m going to leave.” Five threatens. “If you both don’t stop being idiots.”

When Klaus looks up there's a barely noticeable curve to Five’s lips, a small smile that, when Five sees him looking, is instantly flattened out into a look of annoyance.

Klaus saw it, though. Five isn't as subtle as he thinks he is.

 

* * *

 

“Klaus.” Mom says. Kind, sweet mom who has never seemed to mind the fact they address her as their mother instead of Grace. She’s all wires and intelligent coding but, for some reason, she seems to be able to override some of her own protocols. She hugs them when their father warns her not to, she bakes them cookies even when they’re being punished, and she never seemed to mind the development from Grace to mom. “Come on, sweetheart.”

Klaus doesn’t move from his bed, choosing to stay curled up under his duvet than face whatever lies outside of it.

“Your father wants you down for breakfast with the rest of your siblings.” Mom continues. He hears her come closer, heels clicking on the floor, and he stubbornly stays hidden from her sight.

“M’not well.” Klaus mutters into his pillow. He can hear them out there already, voices muffled and hushed, a faint  _drip drip drip_  of blood, the smell of something putrid evading his senses. He doesn’t need to see the ghosts to know they’re there, but Klaus is somewhat good at denial.

A hand gently pushes it’s was underneath his covers and long fingers splay across his forehead, his mother giving a gentle hum as she reads his temperature. “You’ve haven’t got a fever,” she tells him, fingers trailing down to press against his chest and listen to his lungs, his heart. “And all your other vital signs seem okay.”

“I’m ill.” Klaus insists mulishly.

“Now, now,” Grace tuts. She pulls the covers back, ignoring his whine of protest, and blinks down at him with warm eyes and a kind smile. “Don’t be silly, Klaus. You’re in perfect health.”

Over his mother's shoulder is a man with a burnt face, his skin peeling away to reveal bone and muscle and teeth, charred lips stretching unnaturally as he rasps at Klaus for help.

This particular ghost, Klaus knows, is from the burnt down house they drove past yesterday.

The man had followed him home, only appearing to Klaus in flashes at first, a looming figure at the corner of his eye, but at some point during the night he’d managed to latch onto Klaus properly. Ever since he’s spent all his time pleading with Klaus, begging for him to help, to explain what’s happening, and then, when Klaus didn’t, the man had grown angry.

The ghost makes Klaus’ stomach churn, his disfigured face and rumbling voice making his chest feel too tight, lungs constricting and trapping him inside his own body. Panic has long clawed its way up into his throat, spiralling roots digging into his body like it’s nothing but soil, twisted and deep and leaving him with no way to run away from it.

Klaus hates this.

He hates the ghosts and the fear and the stupid helplessness he always feels when they turn angry.

He hates that, lately, they always seem  _so_  angry. It’s like the ghosts take one look at him and know how useless he is, how pathetic.

“I’m not well.” Klaus begs, screwing his eyes shut so that he doesn’t have to see the mess of the man's face. “I’m really not well, mom.”

“Breakfast,” Grace repeats, easily tugging Klaus upright. “Come on, little Four. We can’t keep playing this game, can we?”

“It’s not a game.” Klaus snaps, heart pounding and palms starting to sweat as the man snarls wordlessly at him.

“Careful,” Grace chides lightly as she pulls him out of bed. Klaus stumbles blindly, eyes still screwed shut, and he latches onto the hem of her dress to keep himself upright. “Your father wouldn’t appreciate that tone.”

“He doesn’t appreciate anything.” Klaus mutters, pressing his face into the folds of her skirt. His mom rests a hand on his head, fingers gently brushing through his curls in silent comfort as she leads them out of the room.

“That’s not true.” His mother says. “Your father appreciates a lot of things.” Klaus scoffs, tripping over his own feet and forcing his mom to slow her pace. “You’re just too young to understand them, Four.”

“I’m ten, actually.” Klaus mutters petulantly.

Grace lets out a tinkling laugh at that, letting Klaus hide behind her as she carefully leads them down the stairs.  “Oh you,” she sighs wistfully. “My funny little thing.”

When they reach the basement, he’s forced to open his eyes.

All his siblings are already sitting around the table, most of them halfway through their oatmeal.

Mother has to pry Klaus away from her, gently but firmly planting him down between Ben and Diego before she moves to putter around the kitchen.

“Alright?” Ben asks quietly.

Klaus shrugs, keeping his eyes directed on his lap, too scared to look up.

“Nothing’s in here,” Diego tells him, long recognising the signs of Klaus’ nerves. “Nothing but us.”

“How would you know?” Klaus scoffs. He sits up straighter though, picking up his spoon and shovelling a load of oatmeal into his mouth.

He knows Diego is only trying to help, but his brother doesn't understand. To them the shadows have never been real and then, when his father declared Klaus to be a seance, there had always been the lingering doubt. A lingering confusion over him having a power that nobody else could see.

“Could you at least try and eat nicely?” Five asks from across the table, face pinched in disgust as Klaus shoves another spoonful into his mouth.

“Is this not nice?” Klaus asks with his mouth full, not in the mood to be reprimanded by his siblings.

“Disgusting, actually.” Allison comments. She doesn’t seem too bothered though, eyes watching Klaus carefully as if he’s some sort of fragile china. It's an action that Klaus resents because he’s  _not_  fragile.

“You’re disgusting.” Klaus mutters, sticking his tongue out at her.

She screws up her face at him, nose crinkling and eyebrows scrunching together, but doesn't comment back.

“Mature,” Luther scoffs as if he isn’t the same age as them all, as if being Number One holds a higher rank. “Real mature. Eat like a normal person, Klaus.”

Klaus acts before his mind can really catch up with his actions, his spoon slinging a load of oatmeal at Luther. It splatters across the table with a wet thump, bits of it landing in Luther’s hair and a particularly large chunk landing on his cheek.

There’s a beat of silence, everyone seemingly taking in the scene, before Luther snarls out  _“Four,”_ and shoves himself away from the table, chair clattering to the floor with a loud bang.

Klaus can’t help but laugh at the sight of him, blonde hair matted with soggy oats, disbelief running through him as he claps his hands over his mouth.

“Klaus.” Ben tries to scold. The words lose their power when they come out as half reprimand and half joyful. Diego outright laughs, loud and boyish, and swings an arm around Klaus shoulder to ruffle his hair in a silent congratulation.

Even Vanya looks impressed, raising her eyebrows at him when Klaus meets her eyes.

“Don't rise to it,” Allison is telling Luther, face carefully impassive. Klaus thinks he can see a smile twitch at her mouth though, eyes glittering in amusement. “You know what he's like, Luther.”

“He's an idiot,” Luther snarls. “He's - I'm going to tell dad.”

“Luther,” Klaus pleads, trying to stifle his giggles and turn his face into something more innocent looking. Something more pitiable. “I didn't mean it, Luther.”

“You always do this.” Luther rants. “You're such a - such a  _child_.”

“I  _am_  a child,” Klaus points out. “So are you, darling brother.”

Luther splutters at that, left eye twitching as he glares at Klaus. Klaus can almost hear the silent count to ten the other boys does in his head, a lesson of patience their father had tried teaching him when they were younger.

“Oh, you boys,” his mother tuts, picking up Luther’s fallen chair with a shake of her head. “What am I going to do with you?”

She grabs a wet cloth to wipe up Luther’s face and somehow that's even more hilarious than seeing it covered in oatmeal. Klaus tries his best to stifle his giggles, but Ben is shaking next to him and Diego is cackling into his ear.

“You shouldn't play with your food.” His mother continues. “Why can't you take after your sisters?”

“Yeah Luther,” Klaus comments, unable to help himself, a shit eating grin appearing on his face. “Why can't you be more like your sisters?”

“She meant you too.” Luther bites out through gritted teeth, pointing an accusing finger at him. “Actually,” Klaus does not laugh at the slop of oats that splatter onto the table as he speaks. He doesn't. “Ahe probably meant  _just_  you, you complete and utter moron.”

“Me?” Klaus points to himself in faux shock. “More like us,” he circles his fingers around the table, gesturing to all his brothers. “As a general male collective.”

“Leave me out of this.” Five says.

“You  _are_ a part of this, Five.” Klaus copies Luther earlier action and points an accusing finger at his brother, wagging it as he says, “you should be more like Allison.”

His brother takes the bait, mouth opening to retort, but Klaus is suddenly distracted from whatever he’s going to say by the looming burnt husk of a man that’s lingering in the doorway.

The man looks worse in the in the light of the kitchen, all of the warped and ruined features of the him becoming disturbingly clear. Every slight detail, every fibre and strand of hair, all the strings of blood and tendons - it make Klaus feel  _sick_.

The oatmeal in front of him suddenly seems revolting as the smell of cinnamon and milk fades into something more burnt. More charred.

He’s seen some messed up ghosts before.

Klaus has seen bloody limbs and stab wounds, has seen shotguns to the stomach and plague victims, but this is the worst ghost he’s ever had to witness.

A fiery to death, Klaus decides as he watches the man's tongue lull through the burnt hole in his cheek, is not a good way to go.

The man growls at him, gurgling something intelligible through his melted mouth, and Klaus can’t help but flinch back.

“Klaus?” A hand touches his shoulder and Klaus startles, turning his wide eyes onto Ben to see his brother looking at him in concern.

“What?” Klaus asks blankly, heart racing in his chest. The quick  _thud thud thud_   of it echoes in his ears and he finds himself struggling to listen to Ben, especially when the man takes a dragging step closer to him.

“Did you want to go? Or face up to it?”

“Go where?” Klaus blinks. He glances around the table then, noting that most of his siblings have disappeared.

“Anywhere.” Ben frowns, eyes glittering with an emotion Klaus can’t place. Pity, maybe. Worry. “Before dad arrives?”

“Why would dad be at breakfast?” Klaus flicks his eyes around the table again, quickly passing over the ghost, and that’s when he notices that Luther is gone.

_Oh._

“Because Luther’s gone to rat on you.” Diego scoffs from beside him. “I did t-tell him that he deserved it, b-b-but you know good ol’ Number One.”

“Oh,” Klaus says, feeling unsettled. The ghost takes another step towards him. “Oh. Right.”

“Are you okay?” Vanya speaks up, voice awkward and words halting. She seems to freeze when they turn to look at her, face flushing, but she doesn’t back down. “You’re all,” she gestures at him then, “you know.”

“Human?” Klaus asks, not understanding her point.

“No.” She shakes her head, long hair swaying with the action. “No. You look - um....” Vanya looks beside him then and, although Klaus can see the ghost behind her, he still flinches, twisting himself around to stare at where she's looking.

There’s nothing there, Klaus notes with relief, and then feels stupid for having to look. Even if there was a ghost there, Vanya wouldn’t be able to see it. Nobody would but him.

“Scared.” Ben supplies.

“Who?” Klaus asks. “You?”

“No,” Ben says, voice still gentle. “You, Klaus.”

“I’m not scared,” Klaus snaps, palms starting to sweat as his foot jitters on the floor. “I’m fine. I’m good.”

“Bro.” Diego sounds concerned too which isn’t - Klaus doesn’t- he’s.

He’s _not_ scared.

Sure, there’s a burnt corpse walking towards him with peeling skin that’s fluttering to the floor in bloodied pieces, and okay, yeah, the kitchen smells like burnt flesh and singed hair that may or may not be making stomach clench and his heart race, but Klaus isn’t _scared._

The ghost slams into the table with a loud snarl, not that anybody notices, and Klaus flinches again, eyes dropping to his bowl of mostly uneaten oatmeal.

“It’s okay,” Ben’s saying next to him, voice distant. “Hey, c’mon. It’s alright Klaus.”

“Is it?” Klaus demands, his own voice sounding high and his skin starting to itch. The ghost gurgles something at him, something that sounds too much like  _Klaus_  to his liking, and Klaus feels his eyes start to grow wet.

“Yeah. Course it is.” Diego slings an arm around his shoulders, pulling him into an awkward half hug. “Father won’t-”

Klaus laughs then, and it sounds hysterical to his own ears.

They think he’s like this because of  _dad?_

Their father may be many things (cruel, nasty, uncaring) but Klaus has never feared the man, not when he’s had to stare and hear things much more frightening than his father could ever be.

“What can you see?” Vanya asks, following his line of sight.

To her, Klaus knows, there’s nothing there. It’s a nice thought, really, and a spike of jealousy runs through him when he thinks about how nobody else but him has to suffer through this.

He can’t stop laughing, snickers escaping his mouth as tears pool over onto his cheeks. The man comes closer, phasing through the table as it’s sole focus becomes Klaus.

He’s not scared. He can’t be scared. He-

The man reaches for him, all burnt arm and bubbled skin, and Klaus almost falls off his seat with how quick he jumps away.

“Leave me alone.” he says to the ghost. The words have long lost their power and Klaus doubts that anybody would be convinced to leave him alone when his voice sounds that wobbly and his body trembles with - not fear. 

“Klaus,” Ben says, the words even further away than before, drowned out by the sound of his own harsh breathing and the mans snarling voice. “Hey- it’s not real.”

Klaus can’t comprehend the words his brother is saying, can’t do anything bar back himself into a corner as the ghost advances on him. Something grabs his arm and Klaus flinches, knocks his hip into the kitchen counter and twists, sliding down to curl up against it.

That’s how his father finds him, cowering from nothing as the remainder of his siblings look on in fright, Grace fluttering about and not sure who to comfort.

 

* * *

 

It’s a few days after this incident that their father decides to take a different approach to Klaus’ training.

“This will help you unlock your true potential, Number Four.” His father explains, hand resting heavily upon his shoulder as he propels Klaus along the path. It’s dark out, the winter air cold and biting, and Klaus regrets not grabbing his coat before his father lead him out of their front door.

“I’ve already unlocked my true potential,” Klaus argues, trying once again to unsuccessfully shake the man off. “I don’t need any more of - of whatever it is you’re planning on doing. I’m perfect as I am.”

“You’re my biggest disappointment, Four,” his father corrects, fingers tightening as he directs them through the iron gates and into the graveyard that’s a few blocks down from them. “And if this is the only way I can get you to realise how much power you have, then so be it.”

“How about you take me out for lunch instead?” Klaus argues. “Being nice to me might unlock my hidden potential.”

“Getting lunch won’t help you prepare for the end of the world.” His father snaps. “You need to start taking your training seriously, boy. I’m running out of patience when it comes to you.”

“Good!” Klaus huffs. “I hope you  _do_  run out of patience and that you leave me alone.”

His father lets out a frustrated sigh but doesn’t argue back which is - disappointing, maybe. Klaus has grown to enjoy arguing with their father. The other man can be so mean to them and Klaus is one of the few willing to push his father’s buttons, seeing just how far their father’s patience will stretch until it snaps.

So far Klaus’ record is thirteen minutes of backchat before he got sent to his room with no dinner. Luther had, predictably, looked disappointed in him, but Ben’s small, thankful smile had been worth it, as had Diego’s hastily covered snort of laughter. Five, one of the only other siblings willing to challenge their father verbally, had raised his eyebrows, impressed.

His father continues to steer them through the dark, navigating the graves with a manner that suggests he’s walked this path before.

Klaus supposes that he should’ve seen this coming. Ghosts, graveyards, him. It’s not even that surprising, really.

Their father has, despite his best efforts, become somewhat predictable.

There’re a few ghosts lingering around them, gravelly voices starting to whisper his name as they notice him, flashes appearing in the corner of his eyes.

“You realise I’m not actually a Ouija board, right?” Klaus continues, not wanting to listen to what the ghosts have to say. “I’m not sure what you expect me to do with all these dead people-”

“I expect you to harness your powers,” His father explains in a short voice. “And to finally prove to me that you’re worth my time.”

“Harness my powers how exactly,” Klaus asks for the umpteenth time today. “You keep saying that as if it  _means_  something. I have no idea what-”

“Exactly.” His father snaps. “You have no idea, boy.”

It’s not helpful.

They pause outside a smaller building - a crypt, Klaus’ mind suppliers. A mausoleum.

“What are you doing?” Klaus breathes as his father pulls open the door, a link of chains grating in the quiet air.

His father doesn't answer, instead staring into the mausoleum for a moment before he seemingly nods to himself, turning his cold calculating gaze down onto Klaus.

Klaus doesn't know what he's expecting, despite the obviousness of the situation, but he truly doesn't expect his father to use his grip on Klaus to throw him into the crypt.

Klaus grunts as he hits the floor, bits of loose dirt and gravel digging into his palms as he tries to catch himself. His knees sting too, the familiar burn of a scrape causing him to wince as he pushes himself up onto them.

“I'm helping you.” his father's voice sounds from behind him, jolting him out of his pained haze. “Remember that, Four.”

Klaus scrambles onto his feet, staggering into the wall as he races back towards the entrance. It's too late though, and the last thing Klaus sees is his father's unsympathetic gaze, eyes bright and intelligent behind his monocle, and then he can't see anything at all.

The sudden darkness makes the room feel both too big and too small at the same time and Klaus struggles to make out his surroundings, blinking fast as if that’ll help his eyes adjust.

“Dad,” Klaus shouts, unease crawling under his skin. He feels his way over to the entrance and, once he feels the doors under his palms, he slams them against the door, trying to push it open.

The sound of a lock clicking into place echoes through the room, the doors barely shaking in their frame as Klaus shoves at them, and he feels something inside of him snap at the noise, his shock fading into a very real, very stifling, sense of panic. “Dad, please don't do this.”

There's no reply, despite how hard Klaus tries his to listen for one. He wants to think that his father is waiting outside, that this is just some sick form of scare tactic, but all he can hear is his own laboured breathing. Deep down he knows that the old man has already gone.

“Father,” Klaus begs in a small voice. “I'll try harder. Let me out, okay? Let me out and I'll be better.”

There's no reply though, nothing but the darkness of the mausoleum and the cloying smell of dirt and wet earth.

And then, as if waiting for him to notice them, there's a scraping sound from his left. Klaus turns, half hoping it's a rat, but instead seeing a tall looming figure in the darkness.

“Father,” Klaus whispers, body freezing. The slow dripping of blood starts, the low inhuman screeching of spirits that have lost all traces of humanity starting to echo around the room. “I'll be better,” he pleads in a hitching voice. “I'll be better.”

His father is gone, though. Klaus knows he's gone, finally admits to himself that he’s all alone, that his father has left him here in the dark.

His father has chained him up here, surrounded by the dead and the demons and Klaus only has the ugly knowledge that this is all his own fault.

“Help,” a different voice says, airy and lost. “Can you help me?”

“No,” Klaus slams his hands against the door with a renewed fever. “No no no n _o_   _no_.”

More whispers pick up around him, faint murmurings as the dead latch onto him and pull themselves forth. He can feel sweat start to bead on his forehead, fear clawing its way up his throat like soggy leafs blocking a drain pipe.

“Let me out.” Klaus shouts, voice cracking and palms striking uselessly against the door. “Let me  _out!_ ”

 

* * *

 

Ghosts manifest and crowd in close, crowd in angrily, and no matter how hard he tries Klaus can’t drown them out.

He tries, and he tries, and he  _tries_ , but they won’t leave him alone. Can’t leave him alone, maybe.

Ghosts have always been drawn to him for some reason, caught up in the tide of his very being and being pulled onto his shores. Usually he can ignore them or distract himself, can leave the room and shut out the ghosts for long enough that they fade away or give up on him on their own.

He’s trapped in here, though.

In here there’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide and the ghosts stare at him like Klaus is a feast and they’ve been starved for weeks. They flock around him and beg for his attention in any way they can, cold limbs passing through him and screams so loud that his ears ring.

The thing about a graveyard is that there are so, so many dead people.

The young and the old, the decaying and the fresh.

Some of the ghosts look like they died centuries ago, outfits worn and fraying, whilst others look frighteningly normal. They all seem to egg each other on too, all of them fighting for Klaus’ attention and his help. Klaus doesn’t know how to help them, though.

He’s  _never_  known how to help them.

He did try it once, when he was tired and alone and so fed up of being haunted.

It had been the ghost of a little girl, dark skinned and reminding him so much of a younger Allison that he'd felt something other than disgust and annoyance. She had died on holiday, she told him, and her request had been so simple.

She had wanted him to take flowers to her mother's grave.

Klaus remembers her looking so young, so desperate, brown eyes big and watery as they’d stared hopefully at Klaus. He’d denied her at first, intent on blocking out each and every ghost, but after a week of her following him around and crying silently, he’d given in.

It was that moment of weakness that had led him on a two-day venture that consisted of sneaking out of the house and trying to navigate towards the small city the girl had originally come from. His pocket money had run thin three busses later and he had to hand pick the flowers in the end, him and the girl carefully choosing every one.

The grave had been old, mossy and dirty and long forgotten, but he’d walked towards it nonetheless.

When he’d placed the flowers down he thought the little ghost would be able to move on. He had hoped she’d be able move on, had hoped that he had finally done something useful with his power, but she’d just sat there crying as the night grew cold around them.

Her sobs were harsh and loud for the first time since he met her, silence long abandoned for a broken wail that grew angrier and angrier as they’d lingered there. By this point, Klaus had been gone over a day.

The police found him eventually, crouched in a graveyard, hysterical and shivering as he tried to console somebody nobody else could see.  

The ghosts in here aren’t like her. Most other ghosts haven't been like her, really. She was mostly intact, her mind not lost to the afterlife.

The ghosts trapped in the room with him now or different from anything he’s ever seen. They’ve lost all traces of humanity they ever had, voices distorted and hands starting to turn into claws, bodies into rotted skeletons. Even the fresher looking ghosts were deranged, and Klaus isn’t sure whether it’s the mausoleum making them lose their sanity or whether it’s the darkness surrounding him that makes it seem that way.

It’s dark and its damp and everything feels so dangerous. So disgusting. Disturbing.

So, Klaus sits there, surrounded by the ghosts he so often tries to escape from.

They try to fight for him to help them, for him avenge their deaths, with no mercy or consideration to the way Klaus is curled up and trembling.

The cold of the mausoleum fuses with the cold of the ghosts and Klaus can’t tell where the dead start and where the crypt ends, senses being driven into overdrive by the overwhelming stimuli around him.

He feels lost at sea, buoyant and light as he drifts over stormy waves.

Klaus had tried shouting back at the ghosts at first, voice high and sharp as he varied between shouting abuse at them and begging them for help. His voice had grown louder when nothing had worked, shouts eventually breaking off into a long keening sound.

His voice had given out hours ago, throat sore and dry and scratchy, and Klaus has pressed himself tightly into a corner with his arms wrapped over his head and his eyes screwed shut, praying for it all to be over.

Blocking out his senses helped somewhat. He can still hear the shouts of the ghosts, the screaming and the wails that echo around the room, but they're muffled with his hands over his ears. 

When Klaus opens his eyes, he can still see them looming to close to him, faces pale and wrong, all of them staring at Klaus with dead eyes as if he has all the answers - as if he's to  _blame_  - but he screws his eyes shut to block them out as soon as he opens them.

He can’t stop shivering, body twitching when somebody gets too close, and no matter how hard he tries, Klaus can’t even hold his breath long enough to make himself pass out.

He sits there, and he shakes and trembles as everything around him falls apart.

The longer he’s shut in there the further his mind distances itself, the waves crashing and dragging him away, away away.

 

* * *

 

Klaus is let out seven hours later.

 

* * *

 

  
  
“Alright?” Luther asks warily.  _Luther_.

“Fine.” Klaus smiles brightly, and it feels wrong on his face, feels too big and too false. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Luther agrees. He shares a look with Allison, something that Klaus refuses to read to much into, before turning back to Klaus with that same careful look. “That’s good. Um, Ben said-”

Klaus knows what Ben said. Ben had said it to his face three weeks ago and then every day since.

“Did you know,” Klaus drawls as he pushes himself up from the sofa. “That I preferred it when you were just an asshole to me?”

“I- what?” Luther looks genuinely bewildered. “I didn’t – uh.”

“Klaus,” Allison steps in. “What’s going on?”

 _I’m being haunted_ , Klaus thinks somewhat hysterically.  _I’m being haunted during the day by the dead and during the night in my dreams._

He thinks about trying to explain how his mind feels like a live wire, about how it sparks and burns his body.

He thinks about telling them about the dead that haunt his mind, that scream at him when they aren’t actually there and that claw their way towards him just like they did in the –

“You’re being pushy.” Klaus snaps out. “That’s what’s going on. You and everybody else in this stupid fucking family are being pushy assholes who think that they’re somehow better than me because of-”

“Fine.” Allison says flatly, shutting him up. “Fuck you too, Klaus.” She spins on her heel then, stalking out of the room with Luther following her. 

“And I thought _I_ was going to get the dramatic exit,” Klaus comments aloud to nobody.

He ignores the way something within him screams at his misplaced anger. He chooses to ignore the voice, to ignore the feelings that swirl around it, and shuts them away in the dark part of his mind.

He ignores the way the dark part of his mind feels like it’s overflowing, like it’s shuddering and leaking something dark and poisonous into very being, staining his thoughts and tarring his judgement.

Klaus takes a breath, ignores the way his lungs hurt, and decides to take a bath instead.

 

* * *

 

“And so, then I was like, screw you, you know?”

“Right.” The lady sitting next to him smiles indulgently, pretty pink lips stretched into a kind smile. Her hands are still tied behind her back, but she won’t let Klaus untie them and he hasn’t pushed the matter.

They’ve been talking to pass the time instead.

“Just because he’s Number One doesn’t mean he owns me,” Klaus scoffs. “He doesn’t own shit-”

“Language,” the lady reprimands him, her polish accent distorting the word and making Klaus want to swoon at the sound. He loves accents. “You shouldn’t know words like that at your age.”

“I’m almost  _fourteen_ ,” Klaus argues.

“You’re cheeky,” the woman tuts, tossing her long blonde hair behind her shoulder in an action that should be awkward but comes across as graceful. “You’re lucky I like you.”

“Yeah, well-”

“Klaus?” Allison asks as she walks into the room, staring at him curiously. “What was that?”

“Allison, sister mine.” Klaus grins brightly, pushing himself away the wall he was leaning against. “I was just interviewing the public. Figured this could make a good interview piece, you know?”

“The public,” Allison repeats slowly, eyes trailing over the space behind him. “Who are- uh, where exactly?”

“Here.” Klaus nods behind him to where the hostage is watching them in amusement.

“Nobody’s there Klaus.” Allison says gently, kindly. In the way that suggests Klaus may have a power but that doesn’t mean he’s not crazy.

 “Oh,” Klaus blinks at the lady and she stares back at him impassively. “You’re dead?”

“Does it matter?” She drawls, looking and sounding so, so alive. “Dead, alive, it’s all the same really, isn’t it?”

“I can think of some differences.”

“You are too young to understand.” She huffs. “Such a baby. You wouldn’t know.”

“I know more than you’d think.” Klaus thinks about how he feels sometimes when he’s curled up alone in his bed, listening to the thumps of the dead outside of his door.

He thinks about how he sometimes finds himself confused about where he starts, and the dead begin.

He thinks about how at times he feels no more different than the ghosts that follow him around.

He thinks about death, thinks about dying and living, and finds it hard to separate the two.

The woman’s annoyance fades as she watches him, eyes growing sad. “Maybe you do,” she agrees. “I’m sorry for forcing my presence upon you, słodki.”

“What?” Klaus asks blankly. “You didn’t- “

“Klaus,” Allison sounds like this isn’t the first time she’s called his name. “Look out is over. I need you to come over here.”

“You-” Klaus watches as the woman disappears in the blink of an eye, leaving the space next to him cold and empty. “Don’t have to go.”

“Well I can’t stay here,” Allison grips his arm, suddenly next to him and touch warm and firm as she begins to lead him into the next room. “And neither can you.”

“Not you,” Klaus flaps a hand at her, eyes darting round the office Allison tugs him into. “Somebody else.”

“Did you get their name?” Allison sounds genuinely curious, which is nice. Klaus doesn’t like it when people belittle him about the ghosts and doubt every word he says because they can’t hear it.

“No,” Klaus shrugs, hopping up onto a desk and swinging his leg absently as Allison starts tapping away at a keyboard. “No name.”

“But you wanted her to stay?” Allison presses.

Klaus shrugs again, leaning back on his arms and ignoring Allison’s annoyed huff as he knocks over a desk organiser full of pens and paper clips. “I didn’t mind, really.” Klaus had liked her, as much as one can like the echo of a person that’s stuck lingering on the wrong plane of existence. She had been more switched on than the other ghosts he’s seen, more aware, kinder, and Klaus hadn’t even realised she was dead until moments ago. “She was just different.”

“Different how?” Allison holds her hand out and Klaus drops a USB stick into it. “Aren’t they all the same?”

It’s hard to describe the ghosts he sees. Or, maybe it’s not hard but Klaus is just rubbish at explaining it, which sounds more accurate.

Klaus finds a sad sort of irony in the fact that he’s known for not being able to shut up but can never seem to articulate how he feels.

Being loud is easy, Klaus knows. It’s comforting. It keeps others attention on him and, whether the attention is negative or positive, it allows Klaus to use their attention as a distraction from everything going on around him.

Klaus likes to talk and divert and twist conversations away from him because he hates talking about stuff that actually matters. He hates talking about the ghosts and the affect they have on him, and that might be because a part of him is paranoid that even speaking about the ghosts will bring them forth from wherever they lie.

A bigger part of him is terrified that if he starts talking about the ghosts then he won’t stop - that his words will go on and on and the ghosts will use him as a medium to the real world, that his voice will be stolen by the things he hates most and used until there’s nothing left of it.

So, if Klaus doesn’t talk about them, then he can keep them – private, almost. If he doesn’t discuss them then they can exist in his head and  _stay_  there.

“Aren’t we all the same,” he answers, somewhat belatedly, “deep down inside?”

He watches Allison’s eyebrows furrow, can imagine her eye roll from underneath the domino mask at his continued avoidance on the subject. “Even you and I, sweet darling Allison, are more alike than the either of us want to believe.”

“Is that your roundabout way of asking me to paint your nails again?”

“Would you?” Klaus flutters his eyelashes from behind his mask, jutting out his bottom lip and letting his voice drop into a pitiful tone. “I can’t do it as neat as you. It gets all over my fingers and looks like the worst manicure in the entire state - no, the entire  _world_  - and it-”

“Only if you shut up,” Allison cuts him off. She taps the keyboard a few more times before unplugging the USB and tossing it Klaus’ way. He catches it without fail, grinning big and bright at Allison who’s lips twitch in return. “And focus on what we’re meant to be doing.”

“What is it we’re doing again?” Klaus asks as he follows her out of a different door and into a new hallway. He tries to recall what their mission briefing had been about, but at the time he’d found himself terribly distracted by the dead man in the corner of the room. The ghost had been wailing, head thudding against the wall as he slammed into it over and over again.

“We’re on data team,” Allison - sweet, kind Allison who doesn’t get prissy at him for not listening like his brothers do - explains. “Diego and Luther are the muscle,” she turns them into an atrium of some sort, the domed ceiling above them letting the light of the moon in. “And Five and Ben are destroying the evidence.”

“Nice,” Klaus nods, following Allison as she walks towards a reception room. “Very efficient. And this is all for...”

“Corrupted office institute that’s laundering money.” Allison hops over the desk gracefully. “Dad wants to butter up the chief of police again, I reckon.”

“Ah,” Klaus nods, straightening himself up after he jumps over the same desk. They walk towards a back office in the reception, Allison heading straight for a filing cabinet. Klaus is glad he’s on data team with her. “Of course. What better way to rim the chief than by sending your kids headfirst into danger.”

“Something like that.” Allison mutters as she picks out a bunch of files and hands them over to Klaus.

 _Something like that_  Klaus agrees silently, eyes tracking the way a woman with a knife in her head stumbles into the room. Allison doesn’t react so Klaus safely assumes that she’s dead and then, after another quick glance, recognises the knife as one of Diego’s.  _Something like that_.

Something like the six of them completing mission after mission. Something like being battered and bruised and rewarded for putting themselves in danger by everyone around them. Something like not knowing any different and not being able to do anything to change it.

Being a Hargreeves is something like standing on a shingled beach amidst a storm, the sky dark and the waves crashing, a salty wind biting into your skin as the stones below dig into your feet.

(Klaus tries to push that thought into the back of his mind but finds there’s no room there, so much badness already piled up and spilling into him that the only thing he can do is suffer through it and try his best to play pretend with the rest of them.)

 

* * *

 

 

“Number Four,” Their father calls as they all start to scatter from the dinner table, voice hard and unforgiving. It makes all of them freeze in place, the change in their normal routine startling them into nervousness. “Stay.”

Klaus sighs, considers arguing, but instead chooses to look down at his bare feet.

“The rest of you may go.” His father continues. Around him, Klaus hears his siblings slowly retreat from the room, Ben squeezing his elbow when he passes and Five catching his eye when Klaus looks back up.

Klaus smiles at his brother, bright and unafraid, and Five rolls his eyes back, seeing through Klaus’ act without trying.

“Daddy,” Klaus spins around, taking slow, light steps towards where his father is sitting at the table. “Whatever would you like me for?”

“I ask myself that more often than not.” His father says, words making Klaus pause. Their father may be cruel, but it’s not often he openly displays such displeasure towards Klaus.

He racks his brain, trying to think about what he could’ve done to receive his father's negative attention but coming up blank.  

“What do I want you for?” His father continues as he folds the newspaper in his hand in careful, measured folds. “Do you mean what could I need you for when all you do is prove time and time again that you can’t be trusted?”

“Is this about the vodka?” Klaus frowns. “Because I already told Pogo that I’m sorry. It wasn’t really my fault anyway - didn’t he explain it to you? A man brought it for me, it’s not like I went  _out_  of my way to get it.” Klaus chooses not to mention the fact that he was hanging outside the corner store in one of Allison’s crop tops, fluttering his eyelashes at anyone who walked past, desperate for something – for anything.

“It is not about your heinous activities, boy.” Which, wow.  _Heinous_? That's a bit of a stretch. Klaus wanted vodka and he got vodka - he  _knows_  other kids his age drink. None of his siblings, no, but Klaus has watched TV. He’s seen movies. He  _knows_  it’s not unnatural. “It’s about your continued lack of effort when it comes to your power. How are you meant to stop the end of the world when you can’t even listen during a simple briefing?”

“Lack of effort?” Klaus feels frustration rise within him, bitter and biting and uncontrollable. “I’ve  _tried_. I’ve tried, and I’ve tried, and I’ve tried.” He raises his hands in defeat. “What do you want from me? It’s not like I can do any more than listen to the ghosts - I can’t help them-”

“Four,” His father tries to interrupt.

“I can’t fix them,” Klaus continues loudly. “I can’t bring them back to life. They’re  _dead_  and there’s nothing I can do about that-”

“Number Four.” his father snaps, hands slamming down onto the table and effectively shutting Klaus up.

Despite how unaffected Klaus always like to appear, he can feel his traitorous heart start to pick up pace within his chest and his palms start to grow clammy. A small part of him will always be terrified of their father, Klaus thinks. A small, disgusting part of him that was conditioned from a young age into listening to the man who’s only ever hurt him.

“You need to learn to harness the dead,” His father explains, the words old and familiar and still just as unhelpful as the first time Klaus heard them. “And stop sullying your body in poisonous methods.”

“It’s the only way to get them to shut up,” Klaus argues. “They’re - you don’t get it. They’re so  _loud_.” Klaus thinks of his ringing ears, of the way he can hear screaming even when there’s no ghosts in the room. “They don’t shut up and they don’t leave me alone and I just need them to be  _quiet-”_

“If you learnt,” his father snarls, “how to use your power, then maybe you’d be able to get them to be silent, boy, but you continue to disappoint. You have nobody to blame but yourself for this and yet you continue to blame all those around you instead of accepting this fault.”

“Are you saying this is  _my_  fault?” Klaus demands. “This isn’t my fault. I didn’t ask for this - in fact, I’ve asked for the opposite.” Klaus can feel his fingers twitch, chest growing tight. “I just want-”  _want them to shut up, to go away, to leave him alone_ , “to be normal.”

And that was it, wasn’t it? Klaus wanted to be  _normal_. He was jealous of _Vanya,_ of all people.

“You were born for greater things than normal,” His father stands up and stalks closer, staring down at Klaus as if he’s the continued bane of his existence. “And you will be greater than normal people, if only you try.”

“Great! Great, I’m a freak,” Klaus scoffs out a bitter laugh. “Thank you very much!”

“You’re disobedient,” His father reaches out to grasp his arm, but Klaus ducks away before he can, stepping backwards. “And you’re a disappointment, Number Four.”

“You know what,” Klaus spits, “ _fuck_  you.” Anger and fear mingle into a vibrating feeling under his skin, something crackling and raw. “Fuck you. I don’t have to deal with this.”

He spins on his heal, mind full of thoughts of running away, of leaving everyone behind, of disappearing and never being found again, but his father’s hand manages to clamp around his wrist and pull him to a halt.

Klaus tries to struggle out of his grip, hissing and spitting like a feral cat, turning back to try and claw his fathers gnarled fingers off him, but the other man only grips him tighter, calmly reaching out to take a hold of his other flailing arm.

“You’ve made up my mind for me, Number Four.” his father nods his head to someone behind him and, when Klaus twists his head, he sees his mother walking towards them, smiling softly and with a needle in her hand. “This will be a good lesson for you.”

The needle pierces his arm before he can react, and it stings, burns. Klaus opens his mouth to shout, to cry for help, to protest, but his mother gently shushes him. “It’s okay, sweetie.” She soothes, running a hand through his hair as he grows plaint. “This will help.”

The room starts to spin then, words becoming muffled and things becoming distant.

He falls, fades, sinks down into the ocean of nothingness that surrounds him.

 

* * *

 

When Klaus wakes up it’s with a gasp, lungs tight and painful as he chokes on air.

At first, he isn’t sure where he is, isn’t sure what happened, but it’s the smell that really clues him in. Fresh earth and dust, rot and decay. Then, the quiet sound of whispering, ghosts lingering nearby and waiting for him to wake up properly.

For the most part, Klaus isn’t surprised to find himself back in the mausoleum. This isn’t the first time he’s woken up here, but it is the first time he’s woken up with something other than fear running through him.

Something dark and cloying fizzles underneath his skin, something like static, like electricity and lightning. He tries to stand up but staggers, head spinning dangerously and making him fall forward with a loud thud.

His hands try to catch him, and they slam into the familiar iron of the door as he manages to break his fall. They stay there, grip tightening and coldness biting into his skin, fingers curling uselessly into a fist against the door.

Although Klaus knows calling for help won’t do anything, he finds himself slamming his fists repeatedly against the iron, desperate and afraid and shaking from more than the cold. His head feels wrong, body fuzzy and -

“Let me  _out_ ,” He snarls, not even feeling it when the skin of his knuckles breaks. “Let me the fuck out of here!”

His brain feels foggy, whatever sedative he was given leaving his head feeling like it’s full of cotton and his limbs weak and trembling. Klaus continues to slam his fists into the door, punches growing harder even as his knees give out.

Behind him, the whispers of the dead have turned into graveling murmurs, the familiar sound of the ghosts manifesting starting to echo throughout the tomb. He can feel their gazes on him, heavy and thick, and it makes him feel dirty.

Being in here feels wrong and Klaus wants  _out_.

(he wants out, let him out, please, please, _please)_

He can’t do this. Not again. He hates the mausoleum. He hates his father. He hates his stupid life and the stupid lack of control he has over everything.

Klaus sinks down even further, bloodied fists stilling as his head thumps against the cold floor. The air around him seems to shift, something in him shifting along with it, a not so familiar tugging happening behind his naval.

Anger is still bubbling under his skin, something in him raw and feral and distressed, and Klaus feels so sick. He feels sick and he  _can’t_   _do_   _this_.

He wants to go home, wants to crawl into one of his siblings’ room and listen to the sound of them breathing. He wants to press close to their warmth and stop the voice that doubts his own existence.

Sometimes Klaus feels like he’s already dead.

Sometimes Klaus feels like he’s nothing but a ghost, nothing but one of the shadowy figures he used to see as a child: faded and dull and barely clinging onto life.

Sometimes Klaus wishes he was one of them.

“Help me.” Klaus sobs out, mind cloudy and body thrumming. Nobody is coming, though. Nobody is going to let him out for a long, long while, and so Klaus drags himself into a corner (not his corner. Klaus refuses to call it  _his_   _corner_  because – it’s just too much. He refuses to call a corner of a mausoleum his because that’s where he draws the line of  _fucked up_ ) and slumps against the wall, eyes struggling to focus.

It’s so dark in here that Klaus feels like he’s suffocating - like he’s been buried alive. The walls are too close, and the room is too crowded. “Let me out,” Klaus slurs, pressing his hands over his ears as tears start to run down his face. “Let me  _out_. Let me  _out, please, please, please-_ ”

And then, as his head spins and his body shudders and something inside him snaps, something yanks on his ankle.

The room freezes and for a moment the only thing Klaus can do is stare at the bloodied and bony hand that’s clutching onto his ankle, the ghosts surrounding him seemingly doing the same thing. And then, when the fingers start to tighten up, he  _screams_.

___

Klaus doesn’t remember that night perfectly. His head was clouded by sedatives and fear and it leaves his memory blurred, leaves it fragmented and broken.

The first clear memory of that night is when he wakes up it’s to scratches on his body and bruises painting his skin purple and blue. He blinks his gritty eyes to see his father staring at him in quiet pleasure, a triumphant glint in his eyes, and Klaus shifts on the floor, whimpering when his head spins and stomach churns.

“You did it,” His father steps closer, walking right through the ghost of a dead man with a severed neck to crouch down next to him. “You finally did it.”

“Did wha’?” Klaus slurs, the remnants of lasts night fear making him twitchy. He forces himself to sit up, body aching and mind disturbingly distorted.

His father blinks at him, seemingly looking at him for the first time, and a part of Klaus - for some unknown, childish reason - expects him to see concern on his father’s face. He wants his father to help - to feel bad about what he did and to - fuck Klaus doesn’t know. Apologise? Look after him? Voice his regret?

Instead, when Klaus forces his eyes to focus, it’s to see his father looking down on his crumpled form with a flat expression, eyes slowly going from pleased to disappointed.

“What do you remember?” His father asks.

Klaus remembers his father’s strong grip on his arms, remembers his mother pressing down on a plunger and releasing a stream of sedatives into his blood stream. He remembers waking up to darkness so deep it felt like he was sinking into the earth, the smell of dirt and rot filling his nose. There were ghosts, Klaus knows, but that doesn’t mean anything.

There are  _always_  ghosts.

(and maybe something felt different about them this time. Maybe he can still hear the same screams of a woman - old and decaying in a white nightgown - can feel her fingers on him ----)

“Not much,” Klaus takes a shuddering breath, nails digging into his skin. There’s nowhere to put the fragmented memories, his mind dark and lost and rotting. The sedatives must’ve knocked him out, must have made him hazy and disoriented enough to hurt himself. “I don’t – I don’t remember. Much.”

He feels like a shattered mirror, shards sharp and bloodied and leaving him gaping and empty.

His father sighs at his words, long and defeated. “Very well.” he says, standing up and stepping backwards to reveal a concerned looking Pogo and Grace standing at the door of the mausoleum.

His father walks away then, and he doesn’t look back, not even when a pathetic part of Klaus sobs out his name.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! This wasn't meant to be a thing or was it meant to be so long but hey look I guess I'm a bih for whump
> 
> this is also more hurt no comfort but I have no regrets (:
> 
> no beta, no fluff, no pretending that the hargreeves had anything but a messed up life
> 
> feel free 2 cry about tua to me bc i'm weak and inspired
> 
> title is from when the party's over by Billie Eilish
> 
> [+tumblr](http://lunal0u.tumblr.com).


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